Released in 1997, Hayao Miyazaki’s epic Princess Mononoke(Studio Ghibli Official) is an animated masterpiece renowned for its breathtaking visuals and deeply complex moral themes.

Today, I want to psychoanalyze the terrifying entity that kickstarts the entire narrative and physically plagues the protagonist, Ashitaka, until the very end: the Tatarigami (commonly translated as the Demon or Curse God).

Specifically, we need to answer two vital questions: What exactly is the Tatarigami, and why was its existence so structurally and philosophically necessary to the story of Princess Mononoke?

To unravel this, let’s first examine the glaring logical contradiction of the Tatarigami that almost every viewer inherently feels, even if they can’t quite articulate it.

*This is a translated version. The original (Japanese) is available here.

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  • The Tatarigami is the Pure Symbol of Hatred and Madness
    When the noble boar gods Nago and Okkoto succumb to the curse and become Demons, they completely lose their cognitive reasoning. They forget their original, righteous goals and act with suicidal insanity. This visually demonstrates how absolute “hatred” strips away logic, reducing a living creature to a vehicle for indiscriminate destruction.
  • The Necessity of Depicting Absurd Calamity
    Just like the fatal curse inflicted on Ashitaka or San being abandoned to the wolves, life frequently strikes us with inexplicable, absurd tragedies. The Tatarigami acts as the physical embodiment of this “inescapable, unfair reality.” It exists to force the characters into a corner, allowing the film to powerfully portray the will to survive and look forward without surrendering to the void of hatred.
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Princess Mononoke (1997) Analysis: The Contradiction of the Tatarigami

A tense close-up of Ashitaka aiming his bow, his arm wrapped in the dark, writhing curse marks. The overlaid text reads 'A Symbol of Absurdity', capturing the terrifying nature of his affliction.

The Illogical Actions of the Boar Gods

The two major Tatarigami that appear in the film are Nago, the massive boar who attacks Ashitaka’s village at the very beginning, and Okkoto, the ancient, blind boar god who succumbs to the curse during the film’s climax.

When you break down the plot, a massive behavioral contradiction emerges: Once empowered by demonic rage, both Nago and Okkoto logically should have charged straight back into Irontown to slaughter the humans who wounded them.

Instead, they do the exact opposite. Nago blindly charges eastward, miles away from his enemies, ultimately attacking Ashitaka’s innocent, isolated Emishi village. Okkoto, driven mad by the curse, ends up unwittingly leading the very human hunters he swore to destroy straight to the sacred sanctuary of the Forest Spirit he was trying to protect.

In short, the moment these gods become Tatarigami, they act completely irrationally and actively sabotage their own goals.

Why did Miyazaki write them this way?

Hatred is Literal Madness

It is universally understood that the Tatarigami is the physical manifestation of “hatred.” However, the brilliance of the film lies in how that hatred is expressed.

Miyazaki is explicitly showing us that “when a living being is entirely consumed by ‘hatred,’ destruction itself becomes the only objective. They lose all tactical focus and attack anything and anyone indiscriminately.”

A person trapped in the black hole of absolute hatred forgets their original enemy. They view the entire world as hostile.

Furthermore, pure hatred is inextricably linked to “fear.” Deep down, you are terrified of the thing that hurt you. This is the tragic psychological truth behind their illogical paths: Nago charged blindly eastward to flee from the terrifying, fiery guns of the west. Okkoto, bleeding and panicked, ran desperately toward the Forest Spirit because he was terrified of dying.

The Tatarigami is a masterful, horrifying visual depiction of these two intertwined emotions: indiscriminate, outward “hatred” and a paralyzing, internal “fear.”

This answers what the Demon is. But the more profound question remains: Why did Miyazaki need this specific monster to anchor his story?

Hatred Operates as a Natural Disaster

One of the foundational, philosophical themes of Princess Mononoke is the inevitability of “absurdity”—the terrible “something” that violently disrupts a person’s life for absolutely no logical reason.

In an interview published in The Place Where the Wind Returns (風の帰る場所, in Japanese), interviewer Yoichi Shibuya asked Miyazaki about the significance of Ashitaka being cursed in the opening ten minutes. Miyazaki responded:

“That’s exactly right. The story is meaningless if he isn’t cursed by something totally absurd. Because things like a boy suddenly developing severe atopic dermatitis, a child being struck with chronic asthma, or someone contracting AIDS—these inexplicable, unfair tragedies will only increase as we move into the future. They are fundamentally absurd.”

(Original Text in Japanese)
「そうですね。不条理に呪われないと意味がないですよ。だって、アトピーになった少年とか、小児喘息になった子供とか、エイズになったとか、そういうことはこれからますます増えるでしょう。不条理なものですよ。」

The crazed Demon that attacks Ashitaka’s village is an absurd “something.” San being discarded by her parents to be eaten by wolves is an absurd “something.” Nago taking a primitive iron bullet to the bone is an absurd “something.”

These are catastrophic events. You can scream at the sky and search desperately for a cosmic reason, but you will never find one. They are simply unfair.

The Tatarigami serves as the physical embodiment of this inescapable, absurd cruelty. But simultaneously, because the Demon is forged from “hatred,” Miyazaki is delivering a massive societal warning:

“Hatred operates exactly like an absurd natural disaster.”

As established, hatred radiates outward like a shockwave. Those trapped in its gravity well make destruction their sole reason for living. Anyone—even an innocent prince in a hidden village—who happens to be standing in the blast radius becomes a target. Hatred is a sociological calamity.

You cannot reason with it. Because its root is pure madness.

And yet, standing in the center of this blood-soaked, absurd tragedy, Ashitaka refuses to surrender. He spends the entire film desperately screaming at everyone around him to cast off that “hatred” and take a painful, but necessary, step forward.

Read the full analysis: Why Ashitaka’s Blunt Honesty Makes Him the True Protagonist

Therefore, the ultimate philosophical reason the Tatarigami must exist in Princess Mononoke is this:

To portray a world where characters are forced to survive “absurd, uncontrollable tragedies,” Miyazaki needed a terrifying, physical symbol to represent the resulting anger, trauma, and curses festering inside them. The Tatarigami acts as the ultimate apocalyptic threat, existing solely to validate and emphasize the staggering moral weight of Ashitaka’s core thesis: “Do not let hatred consume you.”

I believe that is the definitive answer.

Personally, I have never experienced a trauma so deep that it mutated into madness and absolute hatred. But having watched Princess Mononoke, I recognize that this isn’t simply “normal”—it means I am incredibly, profoundly fortunate.

What are your thoughts on the Tatarigami? Does viewing it as a symbol of “absurd tragedy” change how you interpret the opening of the film? Let me know!

The images used in this article are from Studio Ghibli Works Still Images.

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Sifr
A Japanese man in his 30s, originally from northern Japan and now based in Yokohama. He works in the education field by day, and in his spare time, writes articles about his favorite movies and animation.